


Walking towards our signings like we're in slow motion

by bluesargayent



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, Vinyaya's alive because I say so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29773458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesargayent/pseuds/bluesargayent
Summary: Several years ago, a blockbuster depicting the failed B'wa Kell Uprising swept the fairy world. Now, Holly just wants to buy some coffee without being recognized.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Walking towards our signings like we're in slow motion

“Crazy stuff, huh,” The barista said. They were peering over Holly’s head at one of the screens hooked up to the coffee shop wall. Holly ignored the background noise when she first entered, barely able to hear it, anyway, due to the steady murmuring of the morning rush of elves, pixies, and gnomes, so she had no idea what caught their eye.

“Uh-huh,” Holly agreed. She pulled out the fake smile that had gotten her through many a trapped conversation with some overzealous new recruit who _totally_ had a better way of executing that maneuver and _why_ hasn’t anyone else realized it yet. 

“I guess not to you, huh!” They laughed, cream-colored apron slipping downwards under the weight of their metal name tag (Mack Iato) as their shoulders shook. “You LEP probably think this is old news.”

“We tend to be too busy to think much about it at all,” Holly replied, hoping her hinting wasn’t too rude.

It wasn’t; Mack didn’t even notice. In fact, they seemed to take an even slower time than before inputting her order. Holly nearly slammed her card on the reader once it was time for payment.

“Short?” They asked, like her name wasn’t right there for them to read on the receipt. “Like that elf from the movie!”

Holly's smile progressed past polite and into threatening territory.

“And you’re even in uniform, too!” Mack shook their head. “Crazy coincidence.”

“Yep.”

“Watch out for those goblin uprisings, eh.”

“Sure.”

And finally, _finally_ , Mack turned to the next set of customers, allowing Holly to make her escape.

She stalked over to the other side of the counter. The area was reserved for picking up orders, complete with a rotating tray for drinks and a screen overhead listing the names of their owners. Holly found her name under the ‘in progress’ category and sighed. Holly regretted stopping for the sim-juice on her way to work. Maybe she could sneak in during Vinyáya’s morning briefing so her boss wouldn’t notice how late she was? Really, Holly should have picked up another cup of sim-juice for the Commander, but it was too late for that; she was never setting foot in that line again.

“Excuse me?” Someone to her right asked. A pixie, nearly hovering on the floor with nervous energy. She gripped her purse so tight Holly wondered if it was about to run off on its own. Holly had seen weirder.

“Yes, ma’am?” Holly immediately straightened her posture, preparing to deal with whatever crisis this civilian needed to bring to her attention.

“You’re Holly, right? Holly Short?”

Holly frowned. “Do I know you?”

“Oh! No, I just--” She gestured towards the television the barista had been distracted by earlier. Holly followed her hand to the plasma screen.

A new station must have been filling some time because there, where anyone could see, was Holly Short herself. 

It seemed to be a montage of sorts, displaying videos of her performing standard duties in public and stills from videos of the adventures the LEP was less than thrilled about. It took Holly a moment to process the stalker-y photos of herself before she realized that there were subtitles running along the bottom of the screen as well. 

_\--is returning to her role as the heroic Holly Short in the sequel to the highly successful “Quashing B’wa Kell”._ The images changed to various action shots of the multimillion dollar blockbuster. _This time, our heroine relives the days before the Great Techno Crash, where Opal is defeated once and for all!_

Oh no.

Holly weeped internally. Not _another_ movie. 

The news reporter kept going: _Concerns were raised as to if we’d ever get another movie, considering the scandal shortly after the original’s release. Holly Short was accused of murdering a fellow officer in the line of duty, as well as conspiring with arch-nemesis Opal Koboi. The charges were cleared for now, so hopefully we’ll see part two, no problem, this summer!_

The reporter didn’t stop there. She continued speaking about Holly’s life as though it were a sensational television drama. Apparently, for some people, it was.

Holly was a very private person. It was bad enough that a movie director was going to air out her life to the entire underworld--not to mention that the chance the information presented as fact would actually be true was smaller than the amount of lines Foaly had been given in the first film (something he was never shy to bring up). 

The hype around the first film had finally died down by the time Holly returned from Hybras, sparing her from any more than the occasional fairy interest piece about her years-long disappearance or her new haircut. She wasn’t ready to see posters of some movie star pretending to be her plastered on every surface again. At least last time had a comically horrifying CGI mudboy for her to laugh at. 

To be honest, she didn’t actually know what the public thought went down during Opal’s last stand. She just hoped she would be spared from teary-eyed death scenes or, even worse, any impractical alterations to the LEP uniform (seriously, how is anyone supposed to fight in a jumpsuit a size too small?). 

A ding snapped her back to the coffee shop. She saw her steaming sim-juice was resting on the countertop and grabbed it, ready to be anywhere other than the shop full of one-way strangers.

Once outside, she stepped onto the moving sidewalk and held the cup of joe to her mouth. Holly cut her hair to match her mother’s LEPMarine crew cut at age ten and never looked back, but now she wished she had some fringe to hide behind. She had a feeling being recognized again on the way to work was inevitable.

Sure enough, she caught a child pointing a stubby finger at her. The tiny gnome nearly fell out of the visible spectrum as she vibrated with excitement.

“Dad! It’s the lady from TV!” She grinned.

The father pulled her closer to his leg. “It’s rude to point, button.” He looked up, face apologetic, but froze when he realized that Holly was, indeed, the lady from TV.

“You! Hol--Hi.” He stuttered.

Holly nodded quickly. She hoped that would be enough to satisfy the family, but the next thing she knew, the little munchkin was letting go of her father’s pant leg and wobbling towards her. 

Without thinking, Holly stepped off, landing on the stationary part of the street while the conveyor belt carried off the starstruck pair.

She was so close to the office. So close.

Holly figured she had a few minutes’ walk left if she avoided the busier moving sidewalk. She was already teetering on the edge of being late, but Vinyáya’s reprimanding was a small price to pay for a moment of peace from that news special. 

A news special that was _still going on_. How much was there to talk about? Opal tried to kill everyone. Holly helped stop her. Opal died, and so did everyone’s phones. If it was a book, it would only be 336 pages, max.

Holly stumbled through the door of Lower Elements Police Headquarters a few moments later. She nodded a greeting to the goblin working the front desk and scanned her ID, allowing her entry.

The hallways were bustling with activity. That was pretty normal, despite it being so early in the morning. Whenever someone looked like they wanted to come up and talk to her, Holly caught their eye and took a long sip of her morning drink. Then she kept walking.

It was as though the universe was trying to make up for the three years she spent side-stepping the timeline by dragging the walk down the stair and through the halls on for an eternity.

Finally, Holly scanned her fingerprint and stepped through the last set of doors to her office space. They closed behind her, shutting away the ruckus of the department a little too eager for the day.

She collapsed into her rarely-used desk chair. The police radio mumbled in the background, unlikely to say anything worth her attention, but, besides that, the room held a welcomed silence.

Until the door opened again.

There were very few people with access to Section 8’s level of the building, much less people who _wanted_ to have access to the comparatively dark and desolate piece of Haven, so Holly didn’t need to guess at who was standing in the doorway, putting absolutely minimal effort in hiding her grin.

“What?” Vinyáya laughed. “You’re too busy ‘single-handedly defending Haven from your old arch-nemesis’ to bring me a coffee, too?”

Holly groaned and slumped back in her chair. She smothered her face with her palms, hoping it would generate permanent damage. 

There was six months before the movie would come out.

_Six months._

Holly sipped her sim-juice. Maybe tomorrow she’d bring something a little stronger.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've read the books, so forgive me for any mistakes regarding Haven (do they have tv's? is it coffee or sim juice? how do the sidewalks work again??). 
> 
> Title is from Falling in Reverse's "Paparazzi"
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! I love hearing what you guys think!


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